Jailed Saudi blogger free after 10 years

• After a decade in a Saudi prison, blogger and activist Raif Badawi was released Friday, his Quebec-based wife confirmed, but questions remain about when he will be permitted to join his family in Canada.

Ensaf Haidar, who lives with the couple's three children in Sherbrooke, Que., said she was relieved and happy her husband was free. In an interview, she said Badawi called her to inform her of his release.

“I had dreamed of this day for a long time,” she said, adding that she and her children were overcome by the news. His family and supporters had been calling for his release since his sentence expired on Feb. 28.

Evelyne Abitbol, a spokesperson for the family, said it wasn't clear what conditions remained for Badawi, who was jailed in 2012 for criticizing Saudi Arabia's religious ruling class.

“Raif is released from the prison walls but we have no indication as to the rest of the sentence,” Abitbol said in an email. “It is now up to the Canadian government to grant him safe passage or a travel document so that he can come and join his family here in Quebec.”

Last month, human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler, who represents Badawi internationally, said his release had been expected sometime in March.

Cotler, a former federal justice minister and founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, had warned that Badawi would be in a sort of “prison without walls” as he still faces a 10-year travel ban, a media ban and a punitive fine.

“While we await further information on the conditions of his release, we hope that Saudi authorities will compassionately allow for his reunification with his wife and young children in Canada, who have been deprived of their husband and father for 10 years,” Cotler said on Friday.

Badawi was jailed in 2012 and sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of one million Saudi riyal — about $340,000 — for criticizing the country's clerics in his writings. He received 50 lashes in January 2015 during a public flogging, but he is not believed to have been whipped since.

Badawi's sentence has drawn widespread international condemnation, and numerous organizations, governments and advocacy groups have called for his release.

Last year, both the House of Commons and Senate voted in favour of the immigration minister using his discretionary power to grant Badawi Canadian citizenship, but that hasn't happened yet.

Bloc Quebecois MP Alexis Brunelle-duceppe, who tabled that motion in 2021, said he jumped for joy at the news when Haidar, a Bloc candidate in the last federal election, called him.

“You have to look at what Ensaf has done: she never let go. She has been fighting this fight for 10 years,” Brunelle-duceppe said.